Spin Controlled Optical Radiation Pressure

Georgiy Tkachenko (1) , Etienne Brasselet (1)

1 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

We report on the full control of the optical radiation pressure at fixed photon flux and incident angle by the photon spin. This is done by using transparent chiral liquid crystal droplets that enable a strong coupling between the linear and angular degrees of freedom of a light field. From these results, we anticipate optical sorting of particles with different chirality as well as novel optical trapping and micromanipulation strategies.

Mots clés: Mechanical effects of light on material media; microstructures and particles

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Georgiy Tkachenko, Etienne Brasselet. Spin Controlled Optical Radiation Pressure. Physical Review Letters, 2013, 111 (3), pp.033605. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.033605⟩. ⟨hal-00845806⟩